


settle the debt

by mandadoration



Series: Settle the Debt [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mechanic Jargon, Mechanic!Reader, im making shit up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22654717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandadoration/pseuds/mandadoration
Summary: You’re the mechanic of several crime syndicates, gangs, and faithful citizens alike, running a tight ship (pun intended) out of your humble little shop, accepting payments under the table and making a name for yourself all over the galaxy. Although, your skills and patience are put to the test when the Mandalorian comes to you with his wreck of a ship. But you’ve dealt with people like him before. The child is an unexpected thing, though.
Relationships: The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Series: Settle the Debt [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650253
Comments: 5
Kudos: 175





	settle the debt

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of timeline, this is after Ch. 3 and before Ch. 4. This was going to be a series, but I decided against it because as I was working it, I really didn’t like how it was going. 

You considered yourself a good mechanic. The best in the parsec, if you felt particularly confident that day. You could fix up any ship, speeder, cruiser, fighter-- you name it, you can fix it. People from all over the system came to you to upgrade their vehicles, and you weren’t going to say no to a few credits slipped under the table for the good stuff. You’re pretty sure you could pull favors from the biggest crime syndicates if you really wanted, you supposed, with how many dangerous and definitely illegal methods you’ve used with little complaint. You don’t know how much the word of some of the most wanted criminals would hold up, but you like to think they’d be indebted to someone like you and magic you could pull off. 

But the ship you were looking at now? Pre-Imperial and made with such a variety of materials that you’re not even sure it’s the same ship anymore? 

You were starting to doubt your skills. 

“What did you say the time constraints were?” you asked the Mandalorian faintly. You wonder if you’ve done something to anger whatever higher power was out there to give you this. Maybe they were telling you to give up now while you still had the chance, sell your things, and hide out comfortably for the rest of your life in some moisture farm or something.

“The sooner the better,” he answers firmly. You let out a deep sigh and run a hand over your face, surely smearing grease all over it, but the pressing issue was the ship. “I will pay you, you have my word,” he reassures, as if _that_ was the biggest issue here, but you’re too busy going through an inventory list in your head to see if you even had the parts to cover the basics. “And no droids,” he tacks on, and you give him a sideways glance. 

“Do you _see_ any droids?” you ask him dryly, motioning around your shop. Sure enough, even as he peers though the organized chaos and scattered parts, there are no droids in sight. You didn’t trust them. They did what they were programmed to, calculations and the like, but you trusted yourself far more than you could trust another droid to do it. There was a certain intuition that droids could never replicate. Besides, more lucrative, underground customers were willing to go to you because of the secrecy you maintained. Having droids meant evidence. 

The console connected to the ship beeps, and you go over to it to see exactly what the damage is. As you skim over it, you wince. “Do you have an estimate?” he asks you, standing next to you and reading the report. 

“The cost or the time?”

“Both.” 

For the second time that day, you rub a hand over your face and sigh. “Frankly? A lot. Your ship is old and so severely damaged that I’ll need to go out and buy or scavenge parts. As for the time…” You gnaw your bottom lip as you consider. Realistically, it would take you _days_ to make sure the ship was in full working order, and that’s with you rushing it. But you aren’t one to lie to your clients, so you huff as you face him with a set face. “Five days,” you admit, and he makes a noise of displeasure. “You have so many internal problems that I need to work from the inside out, and accounting for the time I need to find the needed parts, it’s gonna take a while.” 

“Is there any way you can speed it up?” he asks. You shake your head despite the small pang of fear that goes through you. Maker, the Mandalorian intimidated you in a way your previous clients never could. You keep up your facade of professionalism. 

“I don’t have droids, and even if I did, you wouldn’t let me use them,” you say. “I’ll need at least half up front.” Mando stiffens. 

“I don’t have the money now,” he confesses, and you bristle. “But,” he says, before you can say anything, “I promise you, I will pay you.” You furrow your brows. 

“I don’t take IOUs, Mandalorian,” you say, crossing your arms. He sighs. 

“I know,” he says with frustration, and you can tell he’s at the end of his rope, “but it’s just that--” A cooing interrupts him as you feel something tugging at the leg of your jumpsuit. You jump, and look down to see a small green alien thing, with big ears and eyes that take up nearly half of its face. It must be a child, from how it raises its arms and gurgles at you. 

“What in the world?” you mutter, and bend down to pick it up, ignoring how the Mandalorian tenses and watches you with a closed eye. “Where’d you come from little guy?” you ask in a soft voice, bouncing the child on your hip. “Is he, um, if it even is a he… Is he yours?” you ask, nodding at the Mandalorian. 

“Yes?” he answers, but he sounds equally confused and you shield it away from him. He didn’t sound so sure. 

“You’re not a slaver or an exotic pets dealer, are you?” you ask suspiciously. Sure, you had dealt with all sorts of unsavory people, but you had always refused to serve those kinds of folks. They rubbed off you the wrong way, especially the ones that eyed you up like you could join their collection at any time. Mando looks offended as he could be behind a helmet. 

“What? No, he’s--” A sigh. “He was a bounty. I… rescued him,” he explains, and you relax, but keep your hold on him. You don’t mind how the child is pulling at the tendrils of hair that had escaped your bun. 

“And I guess that’s why you’re so eager to get your ship back in working order,” you guess. He nods. As you stare in the impossibly big eyes of the child you were holding so tenderly, a smile spreads across your face. “You are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” you say gently. It coos in response and blinks up at you. 

“There are a lot of people looking for him,” Mando says. He holds out a finger for the kid to take, and it grasps it eagerly. “Dangerous people. I need to get as far away from here as I can.” The child eventually leans and reaches for Mando, who takes him from your arms and holds him protectively. “That’s why I need the ship to be fixed as fast as possible.” You rub your temples, and steel your shoulders as you stare at the baby in his arms. It babbles at you happily.

“Two days, Mando,” you sigh. “That’s the fastest I can fix your ship by.” Mando nods. 

“You have my thanks,” he says, but you turn away and start jotting down notes in your data pad before he can truly express his undying gratitude.

“Don’t thank me yet,” you grumble.

\--

In a few hours, you’ve fixed what you could, pulling parts from the dustiest corners of your shop and pulling a few things you didn’t even know you had. You had fixed a stray leak or two for his fuel line, nearly burning your hand off in the process, and recalibrated his hyperdrive calculator. His navigation was pretty much fried, so you would have to get orders in for that, and when you were faced with a banged up calcinator in the left turbine, you had kicked it as hard as you could with your boot, and it had actually fixed it. The same couldn’t be said for the deflector shield generators. For that, you had to practically stick the entire upper half of your body to reach the innermost parts to rewire everything and fix the insulation. You’re not sure if you even want to look at the ion flux stabilizers, judging on how the cooling system was nearly scalds you every time you test it out. But eventually you tug on the thickest gloves you have and put on your goggles and patch it up. 

You had made a quick trip on your dingy little speederbike to the market, not bothering to haggle the price as you dart from stall to stall and junkyard to junkyard looking for the parts you needed. At least you’ve been here long enough so that the locals didn’t ask questions as to why you were so frantic. Still, you were efficient, and as soon as you had off-loaded all the parts, you had plopped yourself down on a chair and started express ordering the parts you couldn’t get before. 

As you’re sipping a cup of caf and planning what problems you could address before the off-world parts would come, Mando takes a seat in front of you. 

“I need you to do something for me,” he says without preface. You arch an eyebrow. 

“Really? Something else besides fixing that dumpster fire of a ship in less than three days?” you ask him wryly, but you set down your data pad and cross your arms, setting your face in a neutral expression. He was still your customer, and Maker knows what he could do to you. “What is it?”

“I need you to watch the kid,” he says. You really want to slam your head on the table. Maybe you could knock yourself out and that’ll be the rest you can get before you really had to start the hard work. Better yet, you would sustain such a bad head injury you would die. “I’ll compensate you for it.” Yeah, like that makes it any better. 

He must see the look you have on your face because he quickly follows it up. “I found a job, but I’ll need to be gone for that, and I can’t risk taking the kid with me,” he explains. As much as you want to say to him that he needs to find another babysitter out there for the adorable little gremlin, Mando is going to get your next paycheck, so you sigh in resignation. Besides, you can hear how much the Mandalorian didn’t want to leave it alone. 

“You owe me,” you say teasingly, and wag a finger in his face. “Your debt is increasing with every word you speak. I might have to add interest at this point.” He huffs out a laugh, warm and rich, and pushes your hand down and away from his face. 

“Yeah? Give me the full list of grievances and charges when I get back,” he says. “Thank you.” He gets up and goes back to the ship while you scavenge your shop for something that can hold the child while you work. 

By the time he comes back with his equipment and the kid is in his arms, you’ve found an old cart that you no longer used, and you had stuffed rags in there until it was padded enough and put a folded sheet on top. It’s… ugly. Mando must think so too because he stares at it for a little bit before looking at you. “I’m a mechanic, not a nanny droid,” you grumble, and take the child from his arms.

“I didn’t say anything,” Mando says. He easily gives up the child. 

“You didn’t have to,” you retort as you try and soothe it. It’s fussing, and you think it knows Mando is leaving. You fix a hard stare at the chrome helmet. “If you’re not back by the time I fix your damn ship, I’m going to fucking lose it,” you threaten. 

“I’ll be back,” he reassures. You’re not sure if he’s talking to you or the kid. “You have my word.” You snort. 

“I don’t need your word when you have a debt to pay,” you say, but quirk a smile and turn away. “Now, shoo. I have work to do.” 

\--

After Mando had gone, you had dived right back in to fix the remaining wiring, peeking out every now and then to check on the kid. It was entertaining himself with the junk around your shop, giggling as it threw things around, you only had to stop it from sticking things in its mouth twice. So far, so good. Maybe you could get into the nanny business. 

A sudden rumble in your stomach interrupts your thoughts. Ah, that’s right, the only sustenance you’ve had all day was several cups of caf. You wipe your hands on the rag you tucked into your belt as you think about what you had in your conservator when you stop. 

Shit, what did the kid eat?

You scoop him up as you head to your meager kitchen, opening the conservator as you him. “You eat meat?” you ask him, and it stares up at you. Did it know Basic? You awkwardly hold him out to the shelves. “Um, choose whatever you like,” you ask it, and after what you think is careful consideration, it reaches for a packet of dried burrafish. You bring him back to you, propping him up against your hip, and you reach for the packet, grabbing some soypro for your own meal, and shut the door. “I’ll reheat this for you, okay? Stay here.” You put him back in the makeshift pram you leave it in the little sitting area. You can still see him from here, and you tear open the package as you heat up the stove. 

He sits patiently, watching you as you move around the kitchen, pulling out two bowls as you open the nanowave and toss in the fish and a small rehydration packet at the same time. A few minutes should do. Reaching under a cabinet, you pull out a pan, humming a nonsensical tune to yourself. You wash your hands real quick and start heating the pan before turning to the container of soypro to open it. It’s been a while since you’ve prepared this brand, so you carefully read the label so that you don’t accidentally explode the kitchen. Your ears perk up as you hear a blaster cocking. 

“Where is it?” a low, raspy voice rumbles. You freeze. 

“Where’s what?” you ask him. Your eyes dart around for anything you can use, but your blaster is on your work table several feet away from you, and your only knife is in the sink from your breakfast. You slowly turn around, hands up. You can’t tell who or what it is since they’re masked and have goggles on, but Basic must not be what their vocal cords are made for because it sounds like they’re trying to gulp water in at the same time. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he says. He holds up a tracking fob, and you aren’t that idiotic that you can’t recognize what it is. It’s beeping steadily as the red light blinks rapidly. “The asset. You have him; where is it?” You sigh dramatically. 

“Sir,” you say, “I deal with a lot of criminals. Daily, in fact, in case you didn’t know. You need to be more specific.” The bounty hunter tilts his head.

“The asset,” he repeats. “I’ll give you another warning- don’t play dumb. I saw the Mandalorian’s ship out there,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of the Razor Crest. “And I know he’s not here. Tell me where it is, and I’ll consider letting you live.” You furrow your brows, but eventually point at the pram where it hovers in the sitting area. 

“You saw the ship but you couldn’t see the kid that’s right in front of you?” you ask dryly. The hunter turns around to look, and you use this time to slap the blaster out of his hand, turning around to grab the now-hot pan and wacking it across his face, shattering his goggles at the same time. He howls as the heat makes his mask smoulder and whatever shards that didn’t fly out get in his eye. Before you can fully comprehend that _holy shit this is out of whatever pay grade that Mando was going to give you_ , the hunter whirls around his fist catches you on your brow bone, splitting the skin as you get knocked down. You kick his knee in from where you are, and it bends backwards from the force with a sickening crunch, and he goes toppling down, too. You scramble up as fast as you can, hitting him in the face with your pan again, and snatch the knife from your sink before stabbing him in the chest. The hunter screams, turning into a high-pitched shriek as you use the pan to hammer the handle of the blade, nailing it deeper into his chest. His screaming turns into gurgles, and you step over him to pick up the blaster and shoot him in the head to silence him. You’re huffing as you watch his purple blood leak all over your kitchen floor. Your pan is ruined. 

The nanowave dings as your fish finishes heating up. 

You wipe away the blood that was trickling into your eye and put the blaster on the counter. The child is just watching you with those big eyes, cooing in amusement. “You had fun?” you ask him. “Thanks for the warning, kid.” 

It takes a good thirty minutes for you to haul the limp body of the bounty hunter of your kitchen and into the garage, where you prop it up against the wall. You didn’t have time to properly deal with him. You pat the body down, pulling out the stray credit here and there, and check for any trackers or comms. You crush the tracking fob under your boot and smash the commlink onto the floor. After that, you go around all the doors and windows, making sure they were locked and secure. Now that was dealt with, you start unzipping your blood-stained jumpsuit and head into the refresher. You frown at your reflection. The cut above your brow is still bleeding, and your cheek bone was starting to bruise. “Your dad better be loaded when he comes back!” you call out to the child. You strip and throw the jumpsuit into your basket. Hopefully the blood will come out after a couple washes. 

You take out a medkit and pull out a bacta wipe, wiping the blood off of your face and over your cut, sweeping over your cheek bone to help with the bruising. The cut starts to slowly knit itself back together, but seeing as your bruise was underneath the skin, the wipe couldn’t do much. When you put the bacta pack back into the medkit, you spy two little syringes of blue liquid next to the gauze. A stim shot, and after the day you’ve already had, you’re gonna need it. 

You had to work through the night if you had any chance of finishing the ship in time.

\--

You’re crashing from the second stim by the time Mando comes back. 

“It’s done,” you say, and your words are slurred. You have been non-stop working for two days, and the sun is starting to rise for the third. You have to squint to focus your sight on him unless you wanted to see double. You motion to the console that shows that the ship is in as good of a condition as it could be, and your hands are shaking something _awful_. You drop it by your side and rub your eyes. “And the kid is sleeping,” you add on before he can ask. “He was fed two hours ago, and sleeping for at least one. Parts were, uh, some amount of credits, I’m sure,” you think, and wave your hand. “Service is, uh, shit, where’s my data pad?” you mumble and whirl around to try and find it, but you have to steady yourself on the console. Kriff, you had forgotten how bad it felt to come down. “You know what? I’ll just send the details to you,” you say. You slide down and take a seat in the dirt. “I think I’m gonna take a nap.” Mando tosses a bag of credits to you, and you feel yourself perk up a little when the bag is _heavy_. 

“Is this enough?” he asks. You rifle through it, making quick calculations in your head, basing it on estimates, really, but you frown. “Is it… is it not? Do I owe you more?” Mando asks, and he sounds a little nervous. Unsure. You shake your head and take out a few credits. 

“Too much,” you say, and hold the rest up for him to take. “This is too much.” Mando scoffs, but it’s in good humor. 

“You fixed a ship that would take normally five days in two,” he starts, “bought or scavenged parts that are surely no longer manufactured, and took care of the kid on top of that.” He presses the credits back to you. “I’m indebted to you. Please, accept it.” You sigh, and pull yourself up, and you’re proud to say you only slip a little bit. 

“Mandalorian, you have a kid,” you say tiredly. “A kid that is wanted by many dangerous people. I had to learn that the hard way,” you continue. Oops. You didn’t mean to say that, but you just accept it and motion to the body that you had stuffed into the corner and haphazardly covered with a tarp. Mando’s head snaps to it taking in the purple blood smears you had failed to properly scrub out, and you take this moment to push the remaining credits into his hand. “You don’t owe me anything else. Just take it and leave.” You turn to leave, intent on flopping onto your bed and sleeping for a millennia and a half, but he grabs your wrist before you can, the heat of his skin burning through his gloves. Maker, he’s _warm_. “I hope you’re not asking another thing of me--”

“Come with me,” he says. You slowly blink at him. Perhaps you heard him wrong. 

“What?”

“Come with me,” he repeats, and puts the credits into your hand, and honestly at this point you’re too tired to fight back. “I could use someone of your skill. You would be paid handsomely.” He motions to the bag in your hands. “That’s just from one job,” he says, “and you would get a cut from every one after that if you work for me. Fixing my ship, checkups, the like.” You stare at him with empty eyes as you process the words, and eventually Mando gets uncomfortable from your staring, and shifts where he stands.

You’ve been working in your shop for years, meticulously building up your reputation and making a name for yourself all over the galaxy. Hell, you’re sure you’ve even served some distant cousin of Jabba the Hutt at some point. Going with Mando would make you associates. Your name would be attached to the kid as well. Leaving a reliable source of income to travel with some ex-bounty hunter who’s taking care of a kid, on top of that, mind you, and trying to outrun other hunters? They could’ve been past customers as well. That would be an awkward conversation. But that would also mean you get to travel. You never got to do that. The most off-world interactions you get are shipments that are handled by droids. While you loved your shop, it was also keeping you grounded here. Mando did make good money…

You look at Mando where you assume his eyes are and pinch the bridge of your nose and let out the deepest sigh you have in the past _year_. 

“Do I have to take care of the kid, too?”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Reader fed baby yoda and had her own meal.


End file.
